


A Game of Life... and Death

by icemakestars



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Angst, Gun Violence, Major character death - Freeform, Russian Roulette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 06:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4737044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icemakestars/pseuds/icemakestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Natsu are forced to play ‘Reverse Russian Roulette’, where the gun is loaded with four bullets instead of one. </p>
<p>So many questions are to be answered. How did they get there? Who is doing this to them? And the most important question of them all…</p>
<p>Who will live, and who will die?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Game of Life... and Death

**Author's Note:**

> I just posted this on my tumblr @ice-bringer... I hope you all enjoy!

When Lucy awoke, her vision was blurred. She could tell that the room was brightly lit, but could not make out where she was, nor could she remember how she got there. It was only when she tried to wipe saliva from her lips that she realised she had been tied and gagged.

Panic set in, and Lucy whipped her head around frantically to see who else was with her, and was startled to realise that the entirety of her team was in the same situation as herself, although they were all in varying degrees of consciousness.

There was a man standing in the corner of the room. His hair seemed grey in the looming shadows the lights cast on some of the walls, but when he came closer to her chair she saw that it was actually the same shade as Mirajane’s. When he saw how each of them were awakening, his thin lips peeled back into a grin, and he spoke.  

“This is a game!” He exclaimed, covering his stomach with his hands and throwing his head back in a hearty laugh. His suit was the same colour as the moss which damped Lucy’s legs, and she found herself equally repulsed by them both.  

“Because you are playing the game, I shall call you The Players. It’s my game, after all, and it is a game of life, so you can call me… Kami-Sama!” He clapped his hands in delight, ignoring the struggling grunts of the hostages in front of him.  

Lucy’s eyes widened when she saw a number appear before her head in rotting brown scrawl. Three. That was her number. Above Gray was ‘One’, Happy 'Two’, with Natsu and Erza 'Four’ and 'Five’ respectively. They sat in a circle, tied to chairs by magic-sealing ropes and gagged with a cloth sodden with a sleeping potion, no doubt to keep them drowsy. How did they get there…? Vague memories of an S-Class job involving a rogue circus hazed the edges of Lucy’s mind, but the magic she kept swallowing was making it hard to think of much in detail. There had been an ambush, that much she recalled with clarity.  

As if responding to her memory resurfacing, a sharp pain shot through her thigh and down her leg. She had been stabbed! Gray had been, as well. Maybe he was protecting her, or maybe they just faced the same foe, together. Lucy couldn’t be sure.  

Looking over at Gray, she saw rage in his eyes. The unfamiliar kind that didn’t quite suit his handsomely aloof features, but Lucy assumed the expression was born of pain and humiliation. It was only when she followed his gaze that she realised she was wrong.  

Erza sat shaking in fear, her eyes wide with memories she struggled to suppress. Being tied up and abused in an unfamiliar place had brought on an anxiety attack based on her childhood, and nobody knew Erza’s former pain better than Gray. Natsu noticed as well, and suddenly he was thrashing around with more force. Instead of fighting for his freedom, he was trying to get to Erza, and Lucy found herself in awe of the two males on her team. Despite their current predicament, they remained ardently fond of Erza, and all of their other comrades. For a flicker of a second, Lucy felt indescribable joy that she had joined Fairy Tail. But then 'Kami-Sama’ (Lucy shuddered at calling him that, but she had to other title to give their psychotic capturer) spoke again, and all of that broke away.  

“My game is slightly different to ones you may have heard of… we’ll say, Reverse Russian Roulette!” He leant down and played with a strand of Erza’s hair. She pulled away the best she could, but there was no escaping this torment. He brought the scarlet hair to his lips, and smiled happily.  

“Instead of having one round loaded, I am going to load four! Instead of four survivors I will allow only one!” He laughed again, standing up and moving around the circle, ignoring Gray and striding straight over to Happy. He pet the cat softly as his words struck all of his victims.  

Everyone began shouting in unison, struggling harder for their freedom. If one of them could get free, just one, then all of this could be over. Lucy flexed her fingers, knowing her keys were still strapped to her thighs and wanted so badly to hold them. She could not summon anything, not whilst she was tied up in anti-magic bind, but there was comfort in knowing that she still had her spirit with her.  

The self-proclaimed God walked to Lucy. Her eyes widened in fear as he placed his hands on her exposed shoulders from behind. She saw Natsu’s fists clench at his sides as he fought to help her, but closed her eyes when the mad-man crouched down and placed his lips on the top of her head. Lucy’s body quaked with disgust. Even if she wasn’t tied up, Lucy doubted that she could move; her terror bound her in ways ropes never could, and she felt a pang of anger at her own weakness.  

“Let’s get this game started!” He purred, trailing his hands down over Lucy’s shoulders and taking one, long squeeze of her generous chest. She sobbed unabashedly at this, and if looks could kill then this Kami-Sama would surely have blades of ice, fire and metal plunged into his chest. Lucy met Erza’s gaze, and the brief comfort the stoic Titania could give her through their eyes meeting was the only thing that stopped Lucy’s tears.  

A red magic circle appeared between the five wizards and their tormenter, similar to Alzack and Bisca’s magic. When the circle faded, a gun was left in its place. Lucy stilled in nothing short of paralysing terror as she realised that this was real. It wasn’t some kind of nightmare, and she wouldn’t wake up on Strawberry Street to find Natsu in her bed and Erza in her shower. It was real, and it was happening to her - to them.  

The gun moved on its own accord, and landed in front of Gray. It was at eye-level, only missing his forehead my mere centimetres. He breathed heavily through his nose, head whipping from side to side as he screamed around the gag in his mouth. A timer started up on top of the gun. It counted down from five. Four… Three…  

“Don’t worry, you might be the lucky one!” He sang, moving to stand in front of Lucy, partially blocking her view of Gray.  

Two… One…  

The sound of a gunshot made everyone freeze. Gray’s whole face contorted with the impact of a bullet hitting his flesh, and then he went slack. Blood dripped from his mouth and skull as he bled out his life in scarlet spurts. Erza and Lucy both screamed, and Happy started whining in sadness. Natsu froze in shock, tears streaming down his face as he gazed at the lifeless form of his long-time rival.  

“Oh, I guess not.” The 'God’ laughed again, folding his hands behind his back and leaning forward to inspect Gray’s dead body.  

“Ah well, on with the show! And the next player is… the blue feline!” The gun moved lower to be at Happy’s level, and Lucy’s heart beat erratically in her chest. Gray was gone, and now they were at risk of losing Happy as well. Natsu strained against his binds, screaming words of hatred at the torturer until his voice broke with the effort. The timer appeared again, it’s bold archaic lettering making all of the 'players’ whimper with fear. When it announced four seconds, Happy’s eyes rolled back and he passed out.  

He wasn’t conscious when the bullet hit.  

None of them were silent this time. Natsu sobbed in earnest, yelling and threatening mindlessly around his gag. Erza clenched her fists and shook with rage, and Lucy kicked and thrashed her legs against the chair she had been forced on. 'Kami-Sama’ ignored them all, prodding the lifeless cat with his boot and an amused smirk.  

Natsu went positively feral then, foam flying from his mouth, eyes wide and black with hatred so deep, the force of it alone should have been enough to allow him to break free. When Lucy looked over at him, she saw blood around his wrists, ankles and mouth. If he kept on struggling that hard it wouldn’t be long before he passed out from blood loss, having already severed several major arteries. Lucy attempted to calm him down, but when the images of Gray and Happy, lying dead at this criminal’s hand, met her vision again, she let Natsu continue.  

The gun was pointing at her now. When staring death in the face, she expected to see her entire life flash before her eyes. But that romanticised facsimile of death only happened in fiction, and what was happening to Lucy was far too real for her intoxicated mind to comprehend. Instead of peaceful memories and smiling family members, Lucy saw the barrel of a gun, a counter showing her the inevitability of her demise, and the corpses of two of her closest friends.  

It happened as though she were in a dream. The counter started lowering, Erza had tears falling from just one side of her face, her whole body slack as she stared desperately at Lucy. And Natsu. Sweet, tender Natsu, who had given more than Lucy deserved and taken nothing in return. He looked hopeless now, fighting the loss of blood with the same strength he fought the ropes with. It seemed to Lucy that he was losing both battles, and her chest tightened when she considered how much he must be suffering.  

When tears fell from Lucy’s eyes, she was not crying for herself. She cried for Erza, who had taken steps away from her dark past, only to be submerged in more torment and abuse. She cried for Gray and Happy, who deserved more time and joy then they got, and died not in glory, but in fear. Lucy cried for Natsu, who had lost so much and yet remained the one constant in a world filled with bitter uncertainty. Lastly, Lucy cried for the guild who would mourn them, for the parents she would no doubt join soon, and because there only had a one of three chance that she would find out how this game would end. If she knew who died, it would mean that she had lived.  

In that moment, Lucy couldn’t decide which she preferred; knowing who dies, but being the only one who lives, or dying now with the uncertainty of which friend would soon join her.

Everything happened quickly after that. The timer stopped, the gun fired, and Lucy’s world was suspended in an eternal darkness.


End file.
